3
Asta tossed a few toiletries from her suitcase on to the nightstand by her bed.
Her race suit, she hung in the closet. She paused to inspect its tucked waist, the zipper up the front, the tight cuffs on the sleeves and legs.
The poor thing was showing its age. Once she started her own racing house, she’d finally get a new kit.
She had even been daydreaming recently about designing her own logo.
Something less stodgy than the pretentious shields of the legacy racing houses, she thought.
But the thought of replacing the jumpsuit did make Asta a little sad.
She remembered the night she’d spent bent over the dorm bathtub, her first week at Pillar.
She had been required to treat the suit with fire retardant before she could race, but Asta was determined not to look like a farmer’s daughter and had taken it upon herself to dye the ugly khaki canvas as well.
The red dye had unfortunately stained the tub, too.
Every day, the pink line on the porcelain reminded her that she was an outsider, a wannabe, a pretender.
Asta took the cuff of the left sleeve in her hand and ran her fingers over a small bit of flame embroidered in vibrant orange and yellow thread.
Her mother’s handiwork. Why she bothered with this one tiny embellishment when the rest of the suit was so plain, Asta never knew, but she felt surprisingly sentimental about it – this little vote of confidence from her mother, who had always been so discouraging of Asta’s dreams to ride.
The dye job that night in the dorm hadn’t touched the bright colors of the thread.
If anything, it made the embroidery glow even hotter.
Whenever Asta found a patch that complemented her little flame, she would buy it and sew it on to the suit.
She made a point to add a patch for each tournament she raced in on her way to Silverscale.
The fading red of the dyed canvas was now a backdrop to embroidered scales and dragon’s breath, talon scratches and billowing smoke.
She was a walking map of her own ambition.
Asta wasn’t embarrassed of her homemade suit anymore. It reminded her that she had gotten herself here, all on her own.
She placed her helmet, boots, and gloves in the bottom of the closet.
Carmine watched, curious and attentive. Asta didn’t have a whole lot else in her suitcase: a few changes of clothes, socks and underwear, a hairbrush, and a gently tattered postcard with a picture of Tess Curie, the only woman to have won the Silverscale Standard Western Class, kissing her trophy.
Asta propped the postcard on her bedside table against the round base of a black ceramic lamp.
Carmine withdrew his head into his stable, and Asta heard someone chattering to him on the other side in lilting tones. She climbed onto her bed so she could look down into Carmine’s stall. A narrow-shouldered woman with a black, chin-length bob stood near the door of the stall, cooing to Carmine.
‘Oh my god! Yixin!’
Yixin turned her head from side to side, hair swishing, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from.
Asta waved to draw her friend’s attention.
The other woman laughed with delight. ‘Asta la vista!’ Asta beamed back at the old inside joke.
‘May I?’ Yixin asked Carmine politely and slipped into his stall.
He lumbered over to one side to let her through.
Yixin ran up to Asta, but the best she could do was reach her arms up to the hatch, wiggling her fingers in greeting.
Asta reached an arm through and squeezed her hand. ‘Yixin, I can’t believe you’re here!’
‘Official and everything. See?’ She stepped back and lifted her lanyard. It had a blue stripe, but Asta couldn’t read the words from that distance.
‘What does it say?’
‘Oh!’ Yixin exclaimed and turned the lanyard to herself. ‘Wang Yixin, DVM. Silverscale Staff, Dragon Medical.’
‘My goodness, Dr. Wang, I apologize! I didn’t realize I was talking to such an important person.’
‘I know! Now, if anything happens to this big boy, you come to me first thing. He’s my baby! Aren’t you?’ Yixin ran her fingers down Carmine’s throat, and his eyes went droopy.
Back when Yixin was only the junior vet at the Seraphin Estate and Asta was just the neighbor kid getting in everyone’s way, Asta used to follow Yixin around, asking endless questions about the difference between caring for drakes and westerns and whether wild dragons could be tamed.
She’d made her explain every injection, salve, and exercise she prescribed for her patients.
Yixin had answered Asta’s questions in full, just as excited to tell someone all the things she knew as Asta was to hear them.
‘Some baby,’ Asta huffed. Carmine was the size of her father’s old tractor. He even emitted the same random belches of smoke when she ran him too hard. ‘Do you know how much he eats?’
‘Are you a good eater?’ Yixin cooed. She turned her full attention to Carmine, who slumped on to his side to give Yixin free access to his belly and the soft spots under his forelegs. ‘I always said you would be.’ She slid her hands over his scales, and Carmine began to hiccup and smoke.
‘Hey, cuz,’ Gem said. Asta turned back into the room. ‘I’m going to check out the pit, see if any of the crew is there yet. I’ll meet you back here at – five thirty? The welcome dinner is at six. Then the opening ceremonies.’
‘Sounds good.’ Asta pivoted back to Yixin, who was straining on her tiptoes to see into the room. ‘That’s Gem. My cousin-slash-manager.’
‘Hi, Gem!’ Yixin shouted through the hatch, waving with both hands although Gem couldn’t see either.
‘Oh – uh, hi!’ Gem called back hesitantly. He returned his attention to Asta. ‘I’ll see you later.’
‘Hey, Yixin,’ Asta said once Gem had left, ‘I have been feeling like a fish out of water ever since I got here. As a vet, you’re professionally obligated to help fish when they’re out of water, right? Do you want to show me around?’
‘Yes! Come along on my rounds! I’ll show you everything, little fishy.’
Asta grabbed her sweatshirt from the leather chair by the window and hurried around to the stables.